East Side, West Side: 7 Line's Fate Pits City Against State

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

Published: March 19, 2004

For two years, officials of the Bloomberg administration have said extending the No.7 subway line west to the Hudson River is central to their vision of a redeveloped West Side, including a new stadium for the Jets atop a rail bed, an expanded convention center and blocks of new office towers.

The city has even taken the unusual step of offering to pay the $1.8 billion cost of the extension, which would be the biggest subway construction project in decades.

In the last few weeks, however, New York State officials have begun to undercut the city's argument that the project is necessary. In a series of public appearances and conversations, state officials, along with the Jets, contend that the subway extension is not a critical component of the development of either the expanded Jacob K. Javits Convention Center or a 75,000-seat stadium for the Jets football team and possibly for the Olympics.

The state's position will not necessarily undermine the project, as the money is coming from city coffers. But the diverging positions illustrate the lingering tensions between two ostensible allies, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki, as they scramble for scarce funds for competing projects in the city. Each administration has a transportation agenda for Manhattan, but the state wants to tunnel under the East Side and the city wants to tunnel under the West Side. The gamesmanship taking place may determine which project gets primacy.

The Bloomberg administration wants to extend the No. 7 line from Times Square underneath 41st Street west to 11th Avenue and then south to 34th Street, where it would build a grand station. It is desperate to begin construction of the subway extension and the stadium before the International Olympic Committee meets in July 2005 to select the site for the 2012 Summer Games. If the city wins its bid, the Jets stadium would double as the Olympic stadium, site of opening and closing ceremonies, as well as track and field events.

Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who fashioned the city's Olympic bid before entering city government, has long said that the city -- not the state agency that builds, finances and operates the subway trains and commuter lines -- would pay for the project from increased tax revenues on the West Side, where property values are expected to increase sharply. He wanted to avoid a bruising battle with proponents of projects like the $16.8 billion Second Avenue subway.

''The state and the M.T.A. are not financing the 7 line,'' Mr. Doctoroff said, playing down any suggestion that the city was at odds with the state. ''As we said all along, we didn't want to engage in a debate over competing transportation priorities. The West Side is unique in that the investment in infrastructure, most notably the extension of the No. 7 line, can be paid out of new tax revenues generated in the area. Those revenues wouldn't exist but for the investment in the infrastructure.''

State officials prefer to spend scarce construction money on the $6.3 billion East Side Access project, which would allow Long Island Rail Road commuters to board their trains at Grand Central Terminal, a huge boon to Long Island residents who work on the East Side of Manhattan. They also want to pursue the long-delayed Second Avenue subway.

Charles A. Gargano, the state's economic development chief, said the subway was tied to the city's rezoning of the Far West Side of Manhattan and the development of office towers and apartment houses over the next 30 years.

''The 7 line doesn't have to be part of this project,'' said Mr. Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation. ''It would be good, but it doesn't have to be part of expanding the Javits north or south, which includes the stadium.''

The Jets, who want to begin construction of the $1.4 billion stadium early next year, seem to have taken a similar view.

''You don't need the subway, necessarily,'' L. Jay Cross, the Jets' president, said at a forum on Feb. 9. ''We can take advantage of the natural geography and get a foothold and get something going over there that helps propel other activities that hopefully follow.'' He said he was not opposed to the subway extension, but believed it would be most useful to spectators at Olympic events in the stadium. Jets fans, he said, would be more likely to travel to games via the Long Island Rail Road or New Jersey Transit.

The Jets may be nervous about tying their fortunes to the fate of Mr. Doctoroff's West Side redevelopment and his financing plan for the subway. But the recent political shadowboxing seems to reflect long-running feuds between state and city officials over the financing for various projects, as well as a couple of new disputes related to the West Side.

Peter S. Kalikow, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that oversees the subways, has long said that Mr. Doctoroff's No. 7 line extension was a nice project, but vowed that its financing would not come out of his agency's capital budget. More recently, the agency refused a city suggestion to move $600 million earmarked for the now-defunct La Guardia air-train project to the 7 line extension.